Chaucer

Hi --

There's a terrific blog that's just been started pointing out all the inaccuracies in Acharya's work on the Jesus myther racket. It's here --

http://somerationalism.blogspot.com/

-- and I'm hoping many will get to read it and comment on it here. I wish I had half the level of scholarship shown by this blogger!

Chaucer

Sheshbazzar

Not impressed.

Toto

I'm impressed that the blogger is a Finn writing in English, but the blog has the feel of random thoughts that need to be rewritten and organized.

The blog is hard to follow, as there is no index that I can see. I had to scroll down to find the first post, which announced the purpose of the blog:

On Acharya s

Second post: Sons of God Chapter 1 Astrotheology

Third post: Sons of God Introduction

Fourth post: Frustration

Fifth Post Suns of God

Suns of god part 2

Burden of evidence

tanya

@ Chaucer: in my opinion, your posts are not less "scholarly" than this blogger's.

@ Sheshbazzar: agree with your assessment;

Thanks Toto, for reprinting part of it.

Thank you for describing my thinking, perfectly. I have read a few of her articles, and apart from the elves in Africa stuff, find myself nodding in agreement with her text.

Can you offer an example of these "false claims", or "fabrication"? On this forum we admire the old adage, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics", sometimes attributed to Samuel Clemens, Alfred Marshall, and others....

What is needed is an explanation, perhaps in a sentence or two, of the relationship between "etymology research" and "false claims".

"how etymology works" ????

Elaborating the hoax that is organized religion, as Acharya S has undertaken, is not identical to writing a repair manual explaining the functions of various diesel engine components. Etymology is a tool, one employed in examining how texts have changed over time. It is only a tool, like a wrench. It can be used, or misused.

No amount of etymology, however, will explain why DSS Deuteronomy employs YHWH, while LXX ignores YHWH, substituting instead kurios (adonai in Hebrew), inserting theos for Elyon. (32:8-9)

Right now, I have my doubts about Miekko's claim to be a linguistics scholar with knowledge of algorithms and logic. He offers platitudes criticizing Acharya S, without giving a specific illustration of the supposed fault ostensibly committed by her.

As Sheshbazzar noted, above.

Dave31

Yawn, just another dishonest ranting hit-piece from someone who has no intention of ever being objective or honest. We've seen many of these before over the years from scholar wannabes like Rook Hawkins/Tom Vern, RG Price and a few other militant atheists. Richard Carrier (who's never actually read a single book of hers = intellectual dishonesty), looney Christian fanatics etc.

I'm sure some here will drool over another Acharya hit-piece. It's sad how much work they put into these attacks while objectivity and honesty go out the window. 'Miekko' just accuses her of lying, making stuff up, meanwhile, this guy has no clue what he's talking about. Typical.

'Miekkos' entire blog is all about attacking Acharya S with a smear campaign. There are far too many errors in his blog to waste any time addressing. He has no credibility or reliability whatsoever. Who the hell is 'Miekko' anyway?

stephan huller

But she should be happy. If people are "hatin' on you" you're doing something right. Worst thing is being ignored. Reminds me of the story Rachel Welch once told - "I knew I was over the hill when women started telling me how good I looked."

N/A

Zwaarddijk

Hello, and thanks for the kind words. My intention is not to present an argument (well, maybe a kind of a meta-argument, back to that in a bit). My intention is to document fabrications, misunderstandings, and similar flaws in her books in order. I have already noticed I missed some stuff in the first chapter and introduction - even on the third reading, stuff does evade me.

In short: I document bullshit.


It will probably be slow, as I check her sources, I check sources for claims I make (which, strictly speaking I do not have to: the burden of evidence is squarely on her side). Sometimes, the stuff she quotes is in the public domain, and available from archive.org or similar places, which helps a lot (and those books sometimes, are searchable, yay for modern technology). This has spared me a lot of trips to the libraries of this town (of which there are three entirely separate systems, two being university libraries, of which one is reputed to be the largest collection of religious scholarship in all of Scandinavia.) Even then, there's loads of books I have had to look up in real life, so to speak, and quite a few I have been unable to obtain.

I have already presented the 'meta-thesis' that I am slowly working my way to: if a flipped coin keeps producing a disproportionate amount of heads, we should probably use another coin. (Now, there is actually a way of using almost any coin - any one that doesn't present the same side on every attempt - for fair flips. How to implement that with regard to scholarship is less obvious, as the method basically entails flipping two times, and having the contestants decide whether they think the order "heads-tails" or "tails-heads" will come up first, but only regarding coin-flips in pairs, so heads-heads-tails-heads is interpreted {heads,heads}, {tails,heads} and tails, heads wins. ) That is why I wrote the one post that kind of deviates from the style of the others: to explain why I do not present an actual (counter)thesis yet.

As far as I am concerned, a historical Jesus may not have existed - he might be an amalgamation of any number of Jewish historical characters, or an amalgamation of a very small number of them. So I am not trying to debunk her main thesis - I am rather asking the rather poignant question of why there is so much bullshit in there.

Certainly I have seen mistaken claims in books on hard science and technology - and with the hard sciences, I do talk about them with physicist friends. The thing with communication vs. light-speed, for one, was reviewed informally by a physicist friend, who suggested neutrinos as an obvious counter-example.

I am not a very experienced blogger, which probably explains part of this problem. I do intend to publish an index at the same time as the next post (so as not to force undue update emails on anyone following by mail).

-- miekko

Zwaarddijk

And she misuses this tool.



That is actually explainable by other means, viz. translators doing things. Etymology isn't applicable in that situation.

I have never claimed to be a linguistics scholar. Stop misrepresenting me.

-- miekko

Zwaarddijk

Put up or shut up.

A single actual error. Quote it here. OR SHUT UP.

stephan huller

I don't find this a reasonable objection to anything. A careful examination of Philo's LXX (the actual LXX rather than our surviving text which is a Christianized substitute) reveals a consistent substitution or transposition of 'Lord' for 'God' in many places. I don't know how to explain it other than it is what it is. It doesn't help any side in the argument.

There are examples where to on is used instead of 'Lord.' One could argue that this is a translation of the meaning of YHWH. I am not interested in this woman's claims about the name but since Clement of Alexandria is familiar with the Jewish interpretation of the terminology I can't see any reasonable inference that it wasn't used by Christians or Jews in Alexandria.

For those who are interested YHWH comes from a root which means 'to become' rather than 'to be.'